Accomplice in East Orange oven attack gets 8 years

The attack on Floyd Simmons at his East Orange townhouse last year couldn't have been more depraved, a judge in Newark said today as he sentenced one of two attackers.

Not only was Simmons slammed in the head time after time with a table leg, his body was then stuffed into a scorching oven.

"One can only imagine the sizzling of his body and the excruciating pain it caused," said Superior Court Judge Michael Ravin. "Perhaps mercifully, the victim, who'd been beaten into unconsciousness, didn't have sufficient awareness to suffer."

In pondering what Simmons must have experienced, Ravin rejected a defense request that he give a break to one of two people responsible for leaving the victim, a former boxer, with permanent brain damage.

Instead, the judge followed through on a plea deal that Essex County prosecutors struck with Gloria Jones and sentenced her to eight years in state prison. Jones, 43, had been the prosecution's chief witness earlier this summer at the trial of Isaiah Kinney in the brutal attack.

Even that cooperation couldn't save her today.

"This was a crime of savage hatred, that's obvious," Ravin said, before sentencing Jones on two aggravated assault counts.

Kinney, 44, also of East Orange, was convicted of those same counts -- conspiring to commit aggravated assault and aggravated assault -- and is awaiting sentencing. He faces 20 years behind bars, said Peter Sepulveda, the Essex County assistant prosecutor who handled the case.

According to authorities, Kinney set upon Simmons the day after being released from prison and finding his wife living with Simmons on Prospect Street. Kinney's prison record shows multiple convictions for robbery. The date of the attack was Jan. 28, 2006.